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Index → Middle
East (Generalia)
Featured: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazachstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria, Uzbekistan, Yemen
Also: Arabs, Basseri, Bedouin (Arabia, Libya), Fellahin, Kabyles, Karakalpak, Kazach, Kurds, Nubians, Riffians, Teda, Turks
And: The Circum-Mediterranean
Historical Matters
Sexual Climate: General Remarks
Hammam as Cradle of Sexual Culture
The Other Cradle: “Genital Parenting”
Boy-Love, Boy Prostitution, with a Specific Reference to
Age
Bačas
Early Betrothal / Marriage: Islamic Regulations and
Practice
Current Age of Consent
Genital Morphology Alteration Practices
Sexual Upbringing: General and Historical Points
The Upbringing of Children in Islam
The Upbringing of Children in Judaism
Hymen Cult
HIV / AIDS
Muhammad who, after the death of his first
wife, agreed, at the urging of his followers, to marry a young prepubertal
girl (many argued that the age was 7), Ayesha. “Most Islamic authorities
believe the marriage was not consummated until she menstruated, the
traditionally acceptable time for marriage”, writes Bullough (1973)[2]. This age of consummation was
commonly assumed to be nine[3], as reported by Bullough
(1976:p208[4]; cf. Moztki, p492, 493). The Aisha case
could be used as an argument by judges (e.g., Antoun, 1980:p465)[5]. Islamic marriage, as it is literally synonymous with
coition, normally took place at age 12 or 13, and the Koran prohibits
premenarchal consummation (Bullough, 1976:p214). This sensitises some
contemporary authorities when, in a pamphlet dedicated to Allah, stating that
“[s]exual desire is aroused in human being at the age of puberty”, which
would be “fifteen lunar years for boys and nine for girls” (Rizvi,
undated:p59, 60)[6].
Motzki (1985)[7] states that in central Arabia
around the 7th and 8th century A.D. ejarcularche (13, 14y) and menarche (13)
primarily signified legal, political and social caesura, the minimal ages
would have been nine and twelve (ten), respectively. “So hieß es auch, daß neun Jahre das Alter sei, von dem an das
Mädchen Begierden wecken, und zehn Jahre der Zeitpunkt, von dem an der Junge
Begierden habe könne und man ging gewöhnlich davon aus, daß sie dann auch zum
Koitus fähig sein könnten, selbst wenn die Geschlechtsreife später einträte”
(p494). The physical
transition is intimately connected to the sexual sphere, being a prerequisite
for marriage, which was legal only through consummation. Premenarchal marriage
“appears to have been among the possibilities, insofar she was physically
able for coitus” (p492, 522).
Francoeur (1990:p101-3)[8] provided a baseline sketch of
Islamic sexuality. Another baseline:
“In many Islamic countries boys and
girls are segregated in schools, except at the university level, and even
university segregation occurs in some areas. Dating is forbidden and risky,
although it is practised secretly beyond the watchful eyes of families and
friends. It is not uncommon for couples to delay courtship until they are
actually married and the wife has moved to her new domicile. Premarital
pregnancy or loss of chastity is regarded as a calamity with very serious
consequences to those involved and their families”[9].
Edwardes and Masters (1961)[10] work is monumental for the study
of the development of sexual behaviour in the East. Their narrative however,
seems hyperbolic. For instance, they write that “in the East there are but a handful
of females who do not have their vaginas penetrated at least once by the male
penis before the age of puberty” (p121). According to Edwardes (1967b/1969)[11], masturbation is very common
among the Arabs and Jews from
the cradle. This would oppose orthodox rulings, though[12]. DeMause (1991)[13] seems to agree. The seductive
climate would have to lead to Paradoxia:
“Sex for boys in the Middle
East is said to begin in infancy and continue throughout
childhood. Parents and others masturbate the infant’s penis in order “to
increase its size and strengthen it”, and older siblings have been observed
playing with the genitals of babies for hours at a time.[[14]]
As the boy gets older, mutual masturbation, fellatio and anal intercourse are
said to be common among children, particularly with the older boys using the
younger children as sex objects as a reaction to the over stimulation of the
family bed”.
According to DeMause, girls would be
subjected to a downpour of incestuous assault along the age gradient. DeMause
later[15] draws a parallel between “Islamic terrorism”and sexual socialisation, stating terrorists are
“products of a misogynist fundamentalist system”.
Sexual education in Islamic Middle East
slowly gained weight in the seventies, although met with considerable
hesitation (e.g., Minai, 1981:p133-8)[16].
Hammam as
Cradle of Sexual Culture[cf. Volume II, chapter 16]
The role of sex in the traditional bath house
is widely discussed. North African boys are banned from the women’s Hammam at
the date of sexual coming-of-age (Buitelaar and Van Gelder, 1996:p145-6)[17]. Later, the smouldering memories
of naked females would eroticise the institution (cf. Drew, 1997)[18]. According to Serhane
([1995:p169-77])[19] the Hammam is remembered as a
revolution in male sexual development, a transition nicely illustrated in the
film Halfaouine[20]. In his Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi (1994)[21] describes her cousin’s expulsion
from the women’s hammam, which seemed to have resulted from a similar gaze as
that of Noura (Halfaouine): “Then came the day that Samir was thrown out of
the hammam because a woman noticed that he had “a man’s stare” […] “He might
be four, but I am telling you, he looked at my breast just like my husband
does”[[22]]. […] [T]hat […] incident signalled, without
Samir [the cousin] and I realizing it, the end of childhood, when the
difference between the sexes did not matter. After that Samir was less and
less tolerated in the woman’s hammam,
as his “erotic stare” began to disturb more and more women” (p239-42).
Mernissi was told:
“Men do not understand women […] and
women do understand men, and it all starts when little girls are separated
from little boys in the hammam.
Then a cosmic frontier splits the planet in two halves. The frontier
indicates the line of power because whenever there is a frontier, there are
two kinds of creatures walking on Allah’s earth, the powerful on one side,
and the powerless on the other” (p242).
Other authors mention the hammam is a
forbidden place after the stigma of circumcision that announces the
bankruptcy of the boy’s “asexual” status. According to Bouhdiba (1985)[23]: “The hammam [...] is a highly
eroticized place - so much so indeed that the name has come to signify for
the masses the sexual act itself [...] “going to the hammam” quite simply
means “making love” […] . Every Muslim can relive his childhood in terms of
his experience of the hammam […] notoriously a place of homosexuality, male
and female […] there the child has all the time in the world to contemplate,
examine and compare sexual organs [so that] every Muslim is fixated on his
mother [...]”. Bouhdiba even speaks of a Hammam-complex.
As judged from Messina (1991:p201-2)[24], the Moroccan boy
may remember to be expelled from the Hammam at variable ages, ranging from
three or four, eight to as late as ten.
Serhane (1995) provided a detailed analysis
of Moroccan sexual
development. Masturbation is regarded as deviant. Allegedly, homosexual
abuse, although counteracted by Islam, is frequent and may constitute the child’s
first sexual experience (p45-6, 159). Both homosexuality and zooerastic
contacts are interpreted as directly associated with the repression of
sexuality, and the separation of the sexes.
In the Middle-Ages, the Jews would not have appreciated hearing
their children laugh in their bedrooms, for they believed that in such cases
the Lilith would be playing with their genitalia (Patai, 1967:p224)[26].
A negative association with this belief would
contrast the case of genital reference in infancy found in the literature for
Middle to Near East. Miner (1960)[27]: “The genitals of a baby are
stroked by its brothers and sisters to amuse and please it”. An Egyptian mother would play with boy’s
genitals (Ammar, 1954:p105)[28]. The Kazak rub and play with boy’s genitals, and allow masturbation
(Ford and Beach, 1951:p188)[29]. In Pakistan,
Pandjgur women may stroke the genitalia of their little sons, but only when
their husbands, brothers or any other man is absent (Pastner, 1984:p224ff)[30]. Among the Turks, infants’ “penises were kissed and stroked […] grandparents
and parents fondled their genitals and repeated: “You are male, you are male”
” (Delaney, 1991:p78-9)[31]. Blowing on the penis is done to
encourage urination. Female genitals and masturbation are ignored. Olsen (1981:p108)[32] saw her daughter’s “sugar box”
“kissed lovingly” by a Turkish maid/nurse and was urged to do the same “as a
part of appropriate “mothering” ”. Olson-Prather (1976:p278)[33] noted that a teenage neighbour
girl of the elite class expressed verbal but not physical admiration. Bilge,
another American researcher told Olson[34] that this was common among recent
and earlier Turkish immigrants near Detroit,
Michigan. Helling (1960:p87-8)[35] described that old women may
snatch at the penises of little boys as they run by in the nude, threatening
to cut them off, but also in apparent celebration of his incipient virility.
Edwardes and Masters (1961:p240, 249-52, 264)[36] provide a functional
interpretation: “[The] constant forcible retraction has for centuries been customary
among the Islamic people of Central Asia (e.g., the Turkomans,Kurds, Uzbeks, Kazak-Kirghiz, etc.),
who methodologically masturbate their sons from early infancy in order to
expose the glans penis, dilate the preputial orifice, and stimulate growth
and development. Rubbed erect, the infant’s penis is clasped directly under
the corona by the parent’s fingers; then the foreskin is jerked fully down
again and again, stretching the frenulum and uncovering the crown. All the
members of the family, young and old alike, take turns performing this
denudation of the glans on the new baby for at least an hour every evening”.
The Jews, however, would not have the argument of
preputial conditioning, because of the neonatal circumcision: “They do it
merely because it is super-exciting to the suckling; the exposed glans is
therefore rarely if ever touched or rubbed by the fingers”.
Messina (1991:p165-6)[37]: “Another “flaw”, Suad regards as
peculiarly Farsi, is the affectionate genital contact some women extend when
they greet or communicate with an infant. It is not entirely uncommon to see
women- mother’s, aunts, sisters or maids- touch the child’s genitals with
their hand, then kiss those same fingers, back and forth, a few brief times
with much the spontaneity as the American gesture of gently pinching an
infant’s chin (I am told that fathers do this as well, but personally I have
only witnessed women doing so. I know of one instance with a female infant
and several with males)”. Kasriel (1990:p120)[38] also refers to Moroccan maternal mockeries.
Mernissi ([1985:p162])[39]:
“[The boy’s] penis, htewta (“little penis”), is the object
of a veritable cult on the part of the women rearing him. Little sisters,
aunts, maids, and mothers often attract the little boy’s attention to his htewta and try to teach him to
pronounce the word, which is quite a task given the gutteral initial letter
h. Oe of the common games played by adult females with a male child is to get
him to understand the connection between sidi
(master) and the htwta. Hada sidhum (“This is their master”),
say the women, pointing to the child’s penis. The kissing of the child’s
penis is a normal gesture for a female relative who has not seen him since
his birth. Tbarkallah ‘ala-r-Rajal
(“God protect the man”), she may whisper. The child’s phallic pride is
enhanced systematically, beginning in the first year of life”.
“Some writers speculate that the
veiling and secluding of women results in homosexuality. For example, in his
analysis of Arefnameh, Paul Sprachman claims that Iraj Mirza launched in this
work a “general attack on the pervasiveness of Persian pedophilia,” blaming
it on the strict segregation of the sexes[40].In lines 79–88, Iraj Mirza
states that as long as girls are veiled and boys are not, one cannot blame
men for preferring boys. He further asserts that if girls were available, men
would not sodomize boys. Clearly, it is not pedophilia that concerns Iraj
Mirza but pederasty. In these lines, the poet greatly oversimplifies sexual
dynamics between a man and a boy. Would the pederast really prefer girls over
boys if girls were available to him? Does marriage and the resulting
availability of women change the sexual preference of a pederast?” (Shirazi,
2001:p179)[41].
The Mamlukes (ruling medieval Egypt) indulged in pederasty with
boys from the Central Asian steppes (Murray; Greenberg)[42]. In medieval Southwestern
Asia, the Mamluk[e]s of the sultanate governments were forbidden
to have sex with females but commonly had boys as sexual partners. The adult
Mamluk would educate his boy apprentice (cf. Hardman, 1990; Williams, 1998,
2000)[43].
Persia for centuries was especially
renowned for its boy-brothels. Until the later half of the 20th century, it
was “still an easy matter to find child prostitutes in the Middle and Far
East” (Benjamin and Masters, 1964:p162[44]; cf. Greenberg, 1988:p172-82)[45]; this parallels the gone-by scene
in Morocco
(Rouadjia, 1991; etc.)[46]. DeMause (1991)[47] seems to avoid the issue of age
in Middle-Eastern boy-love. Love of
boys, as judged from Medieval and later Muslim and Hebrew verse (Roth, 1982,
1984, 1989, 1991, 1994; etc.)[48] was informed by classic “Greek”
aesthetics: the boy must not grow a beard, but should be pubescent. Sources
suggest this would have been the case even in the first century BC. (e.g.,
Haas, 1999:p115)[49]. Schild (1985:p101)[50] relates that a special word for
“beard poems” exists (mu’adhar). In
his Book on the Etiquette of Marriage,
Al-Ghazāzī’s mere reference to homosexuality is that it is shameful for a man
to look at the face of the beardless boy when it may result in evil[51]. In “The Upbringing of Children in Islam”[52], the author details a specific
argument against looking at boys:
“In the normal
activities of life like buying and selling, treatment and training, one may look
at a young boy of about fourteen years who has not yet grown his beard.
However, it is unlawful to look at him to enjoy his beauty. It may arouse
sensuality. ¶Hazrat ¶Hasan bin Zakwªan never allowed anyone to sit with such
a boy. ¶Hazrat Sufyªan Thauri may Allah have mercy on him says,
“There is one devil with every woman but there are seventeen devils with a
young boy”. Imam A¶hmad may Allah have mercy on him did
not allow one to move about with such a boy. ¶Hazrat ibn Musaib may Allah have mercy on him said, “Be
vigilant of the one who moves about with young boys.” [note: unaltered from
online ed.]
Others agree that “Some religious scholars
have also forbidden looking at beardless handsome boys in the same way as is
the case with women whom one is not allowed to see”[53]. The Cur’an supplies such unambiguous phrases as “And
there shall wait on them [the Muslim men] young boys of their own, as fair as
virgin pearls” (SURA LII:24) and “They shall be attended by boys graced with
eternal youth, who will seem like scattered pearls to the beholders” (SURA
LXXVI:19)[54]. There is a hadith in Bukhari,
admittedly providing not the Prophet’s opinion but that of Abu Jafar, which
advocates the prohibition of marrying the mother of boys if the latter be penetrated:
“feeman yal’abu bis-sabiyy: in
‘adkhalahu feehi falaa yatazawwajanna ‘ummahu” [As for whom(ever) plays with
a boy: if he caused him to enter him, then he shall not marry his mother;
Bukhari LXII, 25)”.
One of the great male Sufi contemporaries of
Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya provided a divine justification for a pederastic
relationship, as repeated without a hint of disapproval in a 10th century
book about great Sufi women:
“One day Rabi’a saw Rabah [al-Qaysi]
kissing a young boy [huwa yuqabbil sabiyyan]. ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.
‘Yes’, he said. To which she replied, ‘I did not imagine that there was room
in your heart to love anything other than God, the Glorious and Mighty!’
Rabah was overcome at this and fainted. When he awoke, he said, ‘On the
contrary, this is a mercy that God Most High has put into the hearts of his
slaves’[55].
In early modern Ottoman society, as in other
Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies, “sexual congress between adult males
and young boys was not construed as “homosexual” or aberrant; what was deemed
problematic was homoeroticism among adult males” (Pierce, 1997:p175)[56]. In medieval Islamic societies,
“sexuality was defined according to the domination by or reception of the
penis in the sex act; moreover, one’s position in the social hierarchy also
localized her or him in a predetermined sexual role”. Hence, boys, “being not
yet men, could be penetrated without losing their potential manliness”[57]. As Dunne[58] continues, “[s]ex with boys or
male prostitutes made men “sinners”, but did not undermine their public
position as men or threaten the important social values of female virginity
or family honor”. Again, “En
effet, l'homosexualité a été largement répandue dans la société musulmane,
notamment entre hommes et enfants imberbes (amrad, ghulam, sabiy) âgés entre 10 et 21 ans. On
trouve souvent dans les écrits arabes l'expression: "il a un penchant
pour les enfants", ou plus discrètement "il a un penchant pour la
beauté (jamaly, ou yuhib al-jamal). Dans ces écrits,
celui qui pénètre (loti) fait
preuve de virilité (fuhuliyyah),
quant au pénétré (ma'bun, mukhannath), il est efféminé, humilié”[59].
“[With regard to Sufi eroticism] A practice called nazar ill'al-murd,
or "contemplation of the unbearded," involved male initiates
meditating on attractive young boys--some of them barely on the verge of
puberty--as a sign of God's beauty. Also called "The Witness Game,"
it was not quite as scandalous within early Islam as it would be to most
Westerners today. Ahmad Ghazali, a major Sufi figure from Persia in the twelfth century,
was an early supporter of "the game." [Peter Lamborn] Wilson describes a Sufi
portrait in which Ghazali is portrayed "seated in his cell-retreat,
staring at a young boy, with a single rose on the floor between them."
Ibn Taymiyya, a fourteenth-century arch-conservative enemy of Sufism, charged
that kissing and embracing were also a part of these ceremonies, and Wilson
allows that, "when overcome by ecstasy during the sama ('spiritual
concert'), [some] were inclined to rend the shirts of the unbearded and dance
with them breast to breast." […] It seems likely that most of the
God/love-intoxicated mystics separated their appreciation of prepubescent
beauty from any lustful compulsions for sexual penetration, although
according to Wilson,
"One sufi, accused by the arch-puritan Taymiyya of sexual immorality,
replied, 'And so what if I did?' " Clearly we are on an emotionally (and
legally) tender terrain within a contemporary context, but at that time,
according to Wilson, "The ultimate problem for the Islamic moralists . .
. was not pederasty or pedophilia per se . . . The real danger in 'sacred
pedophilia' was the claim that human beings can realize themselves in love
more perfectly than in religious practices." The Sufis were accused of
the heresy of Incarnationism. While conservative theologians claimed that God
could be seen only after death, the Sufis professed to witness God with their
eyes; in the words of one shocked conservative, "while gazing at a
comely slave boy”.[60]
According to Khaled
El-Rouayheb (2005; cf. 2003)[61],
“The Arabic poetry of the early Ottoman period (1500-1800) is still, to
a large extent, unexplored territory. The few secondary monographs on the poetry
of the period suggest that love-poetry as a rule portrayed a female beloved.
[…] this is misleading. The portrayed beloved seems often, and perhaps most
often, to have been a beardless or downy-cheeked male youth. […] According to
some modern scholars, such pederastic poetry indicates a widespread tolerance
of 'homosexuality' in the pre-19th century Arabic-Islamic world, despite
Islamic legal prohibitions. Other scholars argue that such poetry was
cultivated openly because they were conceived to be nothing more than
time-honoured literary exercises. I argue that both positions overlook the
fact that much of this poetry celebrated a passionate but chaste love in the
'udhrī tradition, and that Islamic jurists did not consider such love to be
prohibited, even if directed at a beardless youth.”
From the Encyclopædia Iranica’s[62]
entries on homosexuality:
“[In Zoroastrian literature
dealings with homosexuality] The action takes place between sexually mature
males (aræan--), and there is no mention of sexual intercourse between
prepubescent boys and adult males, so common in the Islamic period, or
between women. […] Only in the much later Persian riva@yats do we find a
distinction between intercourse with adult men and under-age boys. Thus,
according to one riva@yat (ed. Dhabhar, 1932, p. 291; ed. Unvala, 1922, I,
pp. 307, 310), g@ola@m-ba@ragi with a man (fifteen or older) counts as a
margar-za@n sin, that is, worthy of capital punishment, but with a boy of
eight as a tana@v^r^ sin, that is, fifteen times less than a margarza@n sin.
[In Foundational Texts of Islam] The possibility that Qor÷a@nic allusions to
the beautiful boys (welda@n, g@elma@n) who will serve as cupbearers to the
believers in Paradise (52:24, 56:17. 76:19) carried homoerotic overtones was
generally ignored by the exegetes, although certainly entertained from an
early date by the wider society; and the H®anafi jurists, at least, were
willing to discuss, if nevertheless ultimately to dismiss, the idea that
homosexual intercourse, like wine, was a pleasure forbidden in this world but
offered to the male elect in the next. […] There is very little evidence for homosexuality,
however understood, in Islamic societies of the first century and a half
after the death of the Prophet. Abruptly, however, at the end of the 2nd/8th
century, the cultivation of (male) homoerotic poetry appears, particularly in
Baghdad, and most of all in the verse of the extraordinary Abu Nowa@s (d. ca.
199/814), whose love for boys was matched only by his love for wine. In both
cases the joys he celebrated were antinomian ones, that for boys being
expressed either in puckish but chaste verses or in roguishly obscene ones.
However, Abu Nowa@s was by no means alone: already in his own generation it
came to be generally accepted that poets were just as free to compose verses
about boys as about women; and indeed within a century the homoerotic love
lyric (g@azal) in Arabic had expanded to match the entire range of emotion
expressed in its heteroerotic counterpart, from the earthy to the ethereal.
At the same time, historical and anecdotal texts indicate a widespread
acceptance of homoerotic love affairs, at least in elite society and probably
much more generally, throughout the lands of Islam, with very little
geographical or ethnic differentiation. […] It was assumed that many, or
indeed most, mature men would be sexually attracted to adolescent boys, in a
way strictly parallel to—and compatible with—their attraction to women. Like
women, such boys have hairless bodies and soft skin, and like them they are
subordinate members of society, that is, subordinate to mature men.
Inevitably, men's tastes differ, some being interested only in women, some
only in boys, but most in both. There is little difference in the love poetry
about either, and as often as not—in Arabic and all the more in genderless
Persian—it is impossible to determine the sex of the beloved being addressed
or described. Often this is betrayed only by a sex-specific detail—a woman's
swelling breasts, or a boy's downy first beard. The emergence of the beard
was in fact a crucial aspect of male homoeroticism in these societies; seen
as a mark of beauty at its first appearance (the ideal male beloved was about
fourteen), as it became full it marked the end of the boy's—now the
man's—sexual desirability. Despite frequent poetic protestations that a
now-bearded boy or man was still beautiful, such sentiments were always
perceived as going against the normal understanding. To the extent that men's
power-differentiated love affairs with boys (like those with women) were
assumed to be expressed by sexual activity, it was considered obvious that the
man took the active role in (anal) intercourse, the boy being submissively
passive and (in most cases, although this was a very ambiguous area) not
submitting for the sake of sexual pleasure. However, once a young male
reached adulthood, he was expected to become sexually active (with women
and/or boys). While it was recognized that there were mature men who sought
out the passive role in homosexual intercourse, they were viewed as both sick
and contemptible; and indeed to accuse a mature man of such proclivities was
both one of the strongest and one of the most common forms of insult. […] [In
Persian literature] The "beloved" (q.v.) in Persian lyrics is, as a
rule, not a female, but a young male, often a pubescent or adolescent youth,
or a young boy. No sense of shame, no unease, no notion of concern for
religious prohibition affects the exuberant descriptions of the male beloved
or the passionate love displayed by the poets for him. There are many poems
by classical and later poets which explicitly address a boy (pesar) as the
subject of the poet's love […]”.
According to Burton[63], the love of boys was “popular
and endemic” within the “Sotadic Zone”, roughly covering the Mediterranean shores
(France, Italy, Greece, North-coastal Africa), Middle and Far East, the South
Sea Islands, southern native America and the Middle Americas. An interesting
collection of historical data is provided by Drake (1966/1992)[64]. Boy prostitution is said to have
been common (Drew and Drake, 1969:p71-96)[65]. In Turkey homosexual acts with boys
over 12 were legal in many areas. Shiraz (Iran) was described as a hotbed of vice where
dancing boys are greeted with rapturous applause[66]. In the European provinces of the
Ottoman Empire, a “child tax” was institutionalised
to recruit handsome and talented boys for the Emperor’s service.
Cline (1936:p43)[67] observed that “all normal Siwan
men and boys practice sodomy”. The boys are catamites (according to Cline
there were no boy marriages, but this was suggested by other authors), aged
12 to 18, and are exchanged between the men. 59 out of 60 would have been
catamites themselves when young[68]. The issue was reviewed by Murray (1997:p37-41; cf.
Adam[69]).
Bombay anthropologist Gopal (1969:p167)[70] stated that North Indian and Afghanistan
males, known for their extraordinary libido, “almost always prefer smaller
boys”. In Afghanistan,
where women, at least until very recently, wore Burkas, men who have
homosexual relations do not consider themselves homosexual, at least not in
the Western sense. “I like boys, but I like girls better”, one man argues,
“It’s just that we can’t see the women to see if they are beautiful. But we
can see the boys, and so we can tell which of them is beautiful”[71].
Additional refs.:
§
Dale, S. F. (1990) Steppe Humanism: The
Autobiographical Writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, 1483-1530, Int J Middle East Studies 22,1:37-58
§
Dunne, B. W. (1990) Homosexuality in the Middle East: An Agenda for Historical Research, Arab
Studies Quart 12,3-4:55-82
§
van Pel, Ankie (2004)
Wijn en knapenliefde in de middeleeuwse
Arabische poëzie. Lecture, Stichting Habibi Ana (translated in Koinos Mag #45, 2005/1)
Boys in
Central Asia, called batshas, would be trained from childhood on in
erotic songs and dances[72]. Baldauf (1988; 1990)[73] wrote on Uzbek (Northern Afghanistan) love of boys known as Bačabozlik[74]. The Bača was pubertal (11-18), optimally
12 to 16 years old. Jazayery[75] (p198n1) assumes that the terms bachchihbâz and bachchihbâzî (Persian,
homosexual, homosexuality) imply the other “partner” to be “a child (bachchih), or very young boy”. Specifically, however, “[e]ines Knaben
vor einsetzen der Pubertät zum Bača
zu nehmen gilt als Sünde (guno) […]” (B., 1990:p13). The end of the Bača coincides with barbarche (the
sprouting of facial hair). This custom may go forth on 19th century Afghanistan’s
boy harems (Patai, 1960:p156)[76]. In ®Albania, likewise, boys were loved from age 12 upward:
“Die Knaben […] werden von zwölften Jahre an geliebt, und mit den 16. oder
17. Verlassen (Von
Hahn, 1853:p166-8)”[77] (also cited by Ellis, 1927)[78].
Burton (1885): “Of Turkistan we know little, but what
we know confirms my statement. Mr. Schuyler in his Turkistan(i. 132)[[79]] offers an illustration
of a ‘Batchah’ (Pers. bachcheh = catamite), or singing-boy surrounded by his
admirers”. He further notes that “The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and each
caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in woman’s attire
with kohl’d eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses and henna’d fingers and
toes, riding luxuriously in Kajawas or camel-panniers: they are called Kuch-i
safari, or travelling wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their
sides”.
Even today,
“[…] there seems
to be a particular customary sexual behaviour of the NWFP of Pakistan wherein
older, wealthy people keep attractive young boys for sexual pleasure. The
issue of sex and sexuality is very complex and not well researched in NWFP.
Gender segregation and male control of social space and economic resources
are socially accepted. Gender roles and rules are strictly defined not only
in terms of the physical body but also in terms of social duties and
obligations. Transgression of societal rules can be severely punished through
stigmatization, social exclusion, physical abuse and even death. Adolescent
boys are not considered adults because this is a state defined by marriage.
As “beardless youth”, adolescent boys are viewed as sexually available to men.
“Balkey” is a common word used for these boys. It was not clear how such
practices in the NWFP have influenced general male relationships with young
boys throughout Pakistan.
In Balochistan, for example, such relationships appear to be publicly intolerable.
However, evidence of male affection for each other was visible in public
places throughout Pakistan.
Intense male friendships are formed within a framework of homosexual displays
of affection, including extensive touching, body contact and even sharing of
beds”[80].
Brongersma’s (1987:p105-7)[81] informants speak of illegal boy
(and girl) marriages in Albania,
in which fellatio is practised “until full maturity”.
For further references to “Islamic” age-stratified
homosexuality, see the exhaustive collection by Murray and Roscoe[82].
In the ancient world, Jewish law seemed
to require an act of intercourse for a betrothal to be recognised. Biale
(1997:p127-9): “Since the early Middle Ages, the Jews of northern Europe who could
afford to married their sons off very young, frequently at age thirteen or
fourteen and sometimes even younger—this possibly in imitation of the
nobility. The responsa literature over the course of centuries contains case
after case of children married as minors, under thirteen for boys and under
twelve for girls”. The Mishnah said: “A girl three years old and one day may
be betrothed by intercourse […]” (Mishnah, Nid. V. 4; Danby, 1933:p750[83]; Duncan and Derrett, 1974:p26)[84]. Maimonides (A. D. 1180) states:
“If she is three years and one day old she may be betrothed by an act of
intercourse, with the consent of her father. If she is less than that, and
her father has her betrothed by an act of intercourse, she is not betrothed”
([1972:p18][85]). Edwardes (1967a:p168)[86]: “The early-marriage tradition of
Israel found acceptance in Christendom, whose precocious children bedded and
wedded at or even before puberty; but that Talmudic mishnâh stating “A girl
of the age of three years and a day may be betrothed by sexual
intercourse” inspired not a few Talmud-burnings and local pogroms”.
This rule “grew out of an old Semitic tradition and cannot be dismissed as
myth, nor is it simply a Talmudic academic exercise”, according to Rush
(1980:p17-9)[87]. In actuality, Duncan and Derrett
(ibid.) argue, ’Érūsîn (betrothal)
was effected by a payment. At the time of St. Paul, girls were married at puberty or
a little before.
Wegner[88]
(as reviewed by Dawn Robinson Rose)[89]:
“The female
lowest on the rungs of autonomy and status in this system is the minor
daughter. As Wegner bluntly explains, “She is a sexual chattel.” ([Wegner] p.
21) She has a market price [200 zuz] if her virginity is delivered intact. If
a man rapes or seduces her, he must pay the father the price for damaging his
goods. If a bridegroom pays the 200 zuz and then discovers his wife is not a
virgin, he can sue the father. The rabbis of the Mishnah [“the fundamental
legal text forming the discursive backbone of the Talmud”] delineate very
clearly when a bridegroom can legally expect his bride to be a virgin and
when he cannot. Women who cannot be expected to be virgins include converts,
freed captives, or former slaves, for it is presumed that women from these
social backgrounds will have been promiscuous and/or preyed upon by men. If a
girl were sexually assaulted before the age of three years and a day,
rabbinic medicine determined that the hymen healed itself (or regenerated)
and so upon puberty virginity was again intact (and the girl could claim full
bride-price). Wegner notes that the rabbis utilize external, social factors
to determine the virginity status of women and girls instead of physical
examination. In her estimation, it is part of a worldview that considers
girls and women sexual chattel. If these females were in these life
situations, then they were most certainly used as sex objects and therefore
their worth on the market has declined dramatically.
In considering
the cases of rape and seduction of a minor daughter, Wegner finds further
evidence of paternal ownership over the daughter’s sexuality. For example, in
the case of seduction a perpetrator pays for shame and blemish. A closer
reading of Mishnah Ketubot 3:7 reveals that not only are the actual moneys
for the damages paid to the father, but the shame is according to his status
in the community, not hers. The amount for “blemish” is calculated according
to the differential between an enslaved virgin who is put up for sale and an
enslaved woman who is no longer a virgin”.
Kecia Ali[90]:
“All four Sunni
schools recognize the power of a father to contract binding marriages for
both his sons and his daughters so long as they are minors (up to the age of
nine or onset of menstruation for girls and puberty, up to age fifteen at the
latest, for boys). The children have no say in the matter (though a boy
married against his wishes may, of course, exercise his power to divorce his
wife unilaterally once he matures). There is disagreement on whether other
guardians may contract marriages for minors under their care. Some hold that
guardians aside from the father may not contract marriages for minors at all.
Others hold that they may, but both boys and girls will have the option to
reject the marriage when they come of age. In either view, as minors, both
boys and girls are subject to compulsion to marry to an equal degree”.
The Cur’an indicates maturity rather than a specific
age limit for nuptial status. Although the Talmud recommended that a daughter
be given in marriage when na’rah,
between the ages of twelve and twelve and a half, a father could marry her
off well before that time. A boy reached his majority at age 13 and was then
eligible to negotiate his own affairs. According to classical Islamic law
marriage of minors is permitted “provided it was contracted on their behalf
by parents or, in the absence of parents, by other suitable guardians, and
provided that the minor, on attaining puberty, could renounce it before
consummation of the marriage” (Rahman, 1980:p455)[91]. Patai (1962:p100-5)[92] observed that, for a number of
reasons, early marriage is an age-old Middle Eastern tradition, girls being
socialised for marriage at ages 4 and 5 (cf., El Masry, 1962)[93].
Age-stratified
marriage was found to be practised by the Jews, Arabs, Persians, and Indiens (Englisch,
1932:p31)[94]. “Since marriage was intended to
control sexual energy, the age of marriage was an important consideration.
One passage that would echo long and loud for Ashkenazic Jews throughout the
Middle Ages held that a man who marries off his sons and daughters near the
period of puberty (samukh le-firkan) will receive the scriptural blessing:
“you shall know that your tent is in peace” (Job 5:24), 101 evidently
understood to mean that if one’s children were married, they would not
succumb to sexual temptation” (Biale, 1997:p49-50)[95]. Apparently 40% of Muslim
marriages around 17th century Palestine
(1585-1670), at least in the region of Ramla, involved “children” under the
age of 15 (Motzki, 1987)[96]. Drawing on different sijills
from nineteenth-century Palestine and fatw¨s of Khayr al-DÂn al-RamlÂ,
Yazbak (2002)[97] examines the phenomenon
of child marriage and the practice of khiy¨r al-bulâgh, literally
‘option of puberty’.
“If
a natural guardian contracts a marriage for a minor child, male or female,
the child may not subsequently have the contract annulled. Whereas a boy
enjoys the right to divorce his wife through the mechanism of ßal¨q as
soon as he reaches his majority, a girl who reaches her majority must
approach the court if she wants to dissolve a marriage (faskh), and
she may do so only if she was married while a minor by a non-natural
guardian. In this case, she may exercise her right of khiy¨r al-bulâgh immediately
upon reaching her legal majority, i.e., at the onset of her first
menstruation. But she must make a public declaration of the occurrence of
menstruation so that the persons who hear the declaration may serve as
witnesses on her behalf”.
Child engagement was not uncommon in
sixteenth-century Anatolia (Pierce,
1997:p173). “Both pubescent boys and pubescent girl […] might be “carnally
desirable” […], and thus the potential object of the desire of adult males”.
This would be at least at age 12, and if puberty appeared delayed, 17 for
girls and 18 for boys. In Palestine, Syria and Egypt of the 16th
century, marrying off Jewish girls of less then twelve years was quite
common; from the age of twelve girls were considered marriageable (Lamdan,
2000:p46)[98]. Girls were often
married before puberty, but this was frowned upon (ibid., p52, 146). 16th century Jewish history reveals a prevalence of girl
“child” marriage, many of whom were between 12 and 14 years of age (Lamdan,
1996)[99]. The early marriage age may be attributed to
several factors: an attempt to prevent the temptation of sexual relations
before marriage; the effort to arrange the best possible match both socially
and economically; the insecurity of diaspora Jews during
the age of expulsions from Spain and Ottoman expansion, moving them to
establish ties that would assure the children’s financial future; and the
desire to raise a new generation of Jews as
quickly as possible to assure the continuity of their people.
“Child” marriage was prohibited in Egypt in 1923, in Jordan (1951), Syria (1953), Morocco (1958), Iraq (1959), and further[100]. In the case of Egypt, however, some girls may
still have been married prethelarchically[101]. Today, “[c]hild marriage, at
least in its more extreme forms, has been restricted in a number of Muslim
countries, whether by criminal sanction or by procedural device forbidding
the courts to entertain any disputed matrimonial cause in respect of an
unregistrated marriage, and forbidding marriage registrars to register a
contract in which the parties have not reached specified ages” (Anderson,
1971:p24)[102]. “Among both Turks and Arabs, the
young unmarried girl is “loved” by her older brothers and father, but as she
reaches puberty they are faced with a state they cannot “control”, that is,
their daughter’s or sister’s sexuality [[103]]. The girl must therefore be
married, and among both rural peoples, marriage normally occurs promptly
after the onset of puberty[104]” (Meeker, 1976:p390)[105]; betrothal among the Arabs could
be effected before birth (Meeker, p416; Granqvist, p146). In pre-WO
II South Arabia, “[t]he child is never consulted, at least
on the first marriage, about her views on the spouse. In any case she is but
a child. Early marriages in both sexes are usual, and incidences where one
party or the other has not reached the age of puberty are not rare, but that
is no hindrance to marital relations”[106]. 1960s’ Beirut prostitutes had had their first
sexual experiences at 12-13
in 41.5% (5.4 before age 12), with half of all
respondents reporting this occurred with their husbands, a fact indicative of
early marriage (Khalaf, 1965:p33-5)[107]. Marriage at age 13 was common in
Oman (Wikan, 1982:p60-1)[108] and in Yemen (Dorsky, 1981:p99)[109]. In Albania, betrothal in early childhood was probably
customary from the late 17th century till at least the early twentieth
(Durham, 1908:p458-9)[110].
Early marriage for both men and women was a
common practice in Iran.
Stirling (1965)[111] could not add to data provided by
Yasa (1957:p105-6)[112] who reported cases of child
marriage in Turkey, involving no more than the
transferring of a child to its future spouse’s household: “Formal childhood
betrothal appears to be unknown”.
Further
refs.:
§
Peppelenbosch, P. & Teune, E. (1976 [1971]) De Wereld der
Arabieren. 2nd rev ed. Bussum [Holland]: Romen, p108-11
[Dutch]
For details, one is to consult ECPAT[114], Interpol[115]
and ILGA[116]. See also Median and
Minimum Legal Age at Marriage, Age at First
Sexual Intercourse, and Premarital
Sexual Experience tables (Population
Reports, Volume XXIII, Number 3; October, 1995). Graupner (2000)[117] lists the age of consent for Turkey
(1858): 15/18 (vaginal and anal intercourse). ECPAT (Oct., 2002) offers data
on AoC laws for the following countries: Iran
(extramar.)[118], Iraq
(extramar.)[119], Jordan
(15)[120], Kuwait
([15])[121], Lebanon
(15)[122], and Oman ([15]?)[123].
In Morocco, no sexual activity is allowed with a child
until his fifteenth birthday (Art. 484, Penal Code). In Algeria, the age of consent is 16(Law no. 82-04 [13.02.1982] Art.
334); in Rwanda, and in Uganda, it is 18; in Tonga, it is 16. In Tunisia, the age of consent was fixed at20 years for both sexes. Consent is invalid if
the “victim” is below age 13 (Art. 227, penal code). If the victim is more than
13 years and less than 15 years, the author will be punished by 6 years of
prison (Art. 227a). If the victim is above 15 years and less than 20 years,
it will be punished by 5 years of prison. In Egypt, “[a]ny person who rapes a boy or a
girl minor, not yet full eighteen (18) years old, without using violence or
threat, is to be punished by imprisonment. 2.
If the victim is under full seven years or if the offender is one of
those involved in the second paragraph of the article 267, punishment of
penal servitude for a certain period of time is to be inflicted” (Art. 267,
Penal Code)[124]. Albania’s
current regulations on ‘Unlawful sexual intercourse with Minors’, (Art.100,
Penal Code) states that “[c]ommitting unlawful sexual intercourse with a
girl, under the age of fourteen (14) or having not reached the age of
puberty, is punished by imprisonment term varying from five (5) to fifteen
(15) years”[125]. In Armenia (Art. 114, Penal Code), sexual acts are
forbidden under the age of 16, or before puberty. In the Azerbaijan Republic, article 111 of the Criminal Code
specifies criminal responsibility for sexual relations with a person aged
under sixteen. Sexual intercourse with a person aged below sixteen years
shall be punished with imprisonment for up to 3 years. The same actions
committed in a perverted way or with a view of satisfaction of sexual passion
shall be punished with imprisonment for up to 5 years according to article
112[126].
In Lebanon, the age of consent in 15 (Art. 5,
Penal Code). The age of Consent in Iraq is said to be 14 for females, and 17 for
males. In Iran, it would be 18, although it had been
lowered to 15 “(or 13, in
some accounts)” by the 1979 constitution[127].
In Israel, it is 16. In Oman,sexual activities or acts are
not allowed, except in Legal Marriage, for which no legal age exists. In Syria, the Civil code (Order in
Council No. 59 of 1953 and its amendments) defined in its article 18 the age
of maturity (sexual activity): 15
years for the boy and 13 years for the girl. In Turkey,crimes against public decency and family order include “removing the virginity of a girl who has completed
fifteen years of age, with a promise of marriage” (Art. 423,
Criminal Code). In Pakistan, No age limit has been fixed for
consenting to a sexual activity. However, for the punishment of “Zina”
(sexual intercourse without being validly married to each other) liable to
“Hadd”, the person committing the offence should be adult/major (Section 5 of
the offence of Zina, Enforcement of Hudood Ordinance, 1979)[128].
Foster
(1994)[129]: “The widespread practice
of female circumcision in the Islamic world can be attributed to a variety of
factors such as religious tradition and marital expectations. The
conservative form of female circumcision found in Islamic communities
indicate that the custom is genuinely Islamic resulting from the belief that
Mohammed advocated the practice”. [See country pages for details]
Additional reading:
§
Okwubanego, J. T. (1999)Female
circumcisionand
thegirlchild
in Africa and the Middle East:
the eyes of the world are blind to the conquered, The
International Lawyer33,1:159-87
§
Winkel E. (1995) A Muslim perspective on female
circumcision, Women & Health
23,1:1-7
In a recent study[130], sex instruction manuals written
in central Europe in the nineteenth century Palestine
and Israel
in the twentieth century form the basis for broader discussions on religious
and scientific discourse on child and adolescent sexuality within the Jewish communities. By tracing the development
of forms of expert knowledge, the authors show how expert discourse on
masturbation gradually transformed it from a symbolic moral evil into a
medical disease and a psychological problem, before declaring it a
legitimised behaviour. Epstein[131], however, is remarkably silent
about preadulthood.
According to Couchard (1987)[132], the “phallic”, all-powerful
mother plays a chief role in her daughters’ sex education, as dictated by
Moslem [muslim] custom and by her “societal superego”. Maternal discourse
shapes a daughter’s phantasms of external realities and the male world. The
reputation of a Moslem clan depends on the modesty and virginity rate of its
female members. Threats, pleas, and magical secrets imposed on or offered to
the girls by their mothers are all variations on themes such as menstruation
and loss of virginity. The life of women is characterised by continual
psychic pressure from birth, a subordinate social position, virginity requirements
for marriage (which often takes place before first menstruation), and
pregnancies soon after marriage, with a likelihood of childbirth injury and
subsequent sterility[133].
Halstead (1997)[134] explores
Muslim concepts of sex education on the occasion of “recent calls by Muslim leaders in Britain
for Muslim parents to withdraw theft children from sex education classes”. Most importantly, “What underlies
Muslim objections to contemporary practice in sex education is that it is
based on a humanistic interpretation of the needs and will of the individual
rather than on religious foundations [while f]or Muslims, an understanding of
sexuality--and indeed all areas of life--should begin "not with internal
demands felt by the individual, but with the will of God”. Thus, “It is the
erosion of religious values in sex education in state schools in the West
which many Muslims find unacceptable. They fear that Muslim children are not
merely picking up information about practices which deviate from Islamic
norms, they are being presented with a vision of life from which religion is
excluded or at least relegated to the status of a variable”. More
practically, full nudity videos offended decency concepts.
Van
Gelder (1993:p36-40)[135] briefly sketches the role of
Islam in the formation of sexual behaviour patterns in Moroccan men.
Children of opposite sex can sleep in single rooms, given the idea that, according
to an informant, “they don’t understand a thing yet” of sex; thereafter the
child is socialised in Islamic teachings. In an Arabic book entitled “The Upbringing of Children in Islam”[136], very specific codes are detailed
concerning the behaviour of children.
“A child must not be allowed near anything that
is liable to incite him sexually and thus mar his character. The period just
before attaining maturity is the most sensitive time in the life of a person.
Children of this age must not be allowed near women. At this age, they tend
to differentiate between beauty and ugliness and sensual feelings grow in
them. At ten years, their beds must be separated.Once,
when he was about the age of maturity, ̉Hazrat Fazal glanced at a woman, the
Holy Prophet may blessings of Allah
and peace be on him physically
turned his face the other way.̉Hazrat Abbªas enquired of the Prophet the
reason for doing this. He said, “I saw a young man looking towards a young
woman and feared they would succumb to base desire”.A guardian
has a twofold responsibility in this regard.
To
keep his ward away from sexually inciting things. When he is old enough, do not let him enter the
house without permission at times of rest and sleep. If he sees his parents
in an intimate position, he might feel sexually aflame. When he attains the
age of nine, do not let him meet women who are strangers. When he is ten
years old, do not let him sleep with his brothers and sisters. When he is
conscious enough, see that he does not have an opportunity to see those parts
of a woman’s body that are normally covered. Do not allow him to see films on
television or in cinema. Let him not see vulgar films, magazines and romantic
novels, or listen to audio cassettes that provoke sentiments. Make it a habit
to inspect his room, his bed and his belongings. Prevent him from meeting
female relatives or neighbours even though they may be attending the same
school” [refs. omitted].
The non-Islamic case is
dealt with as an exemplum malum: “We
find many stories of hopeless cases in Europe and America [ref. omitted] Students,
boys and girls, waste all their time in writing romantic letters with
catastrophic results. […] [The boy] must be awake to the intrigues hatched by
the Jews, Zionists, Christians,
and colonial powers to evoke social and moral corruption and vulgarity in
societies. He will then watch out for the snares in the guise of women, film,
theatre, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, vulgar dresses, nude
pictures, and dens of prostitution, clandestine or known”.
Beck[137] argues that puberty “brings with
it not increased independence, but further restrictions and controls,
particularly as regards contacts between the sexes, modesty, and sexual
taboos. These are imposed earlier and more rigidly on the girls, for a girl
must never be permitted to shame herself. If she does, her father is
considered to blame” (p345).
Rapoport and Garb[138] argue that “[…] religious Zionism
is strongly ambivalent towards the Westernised conceptions of adolescent
sexuality and the female emancipatory agenda of secular Zionism”.
Specifically,
“Religious Zionist boys and girls are
instructed to behave as if they belong to separate worlds, which are expected
to come together only in marriage. The Ulpana [“an elitist educational
framework, established in the mid-1960s, that offers the 'cream' of religious
adolescent girls a modern religious education in the confines of a single-sex
boarding school”] strongly reinforces this message. The young women are
discouraged from forming intimate relations with boys, yet this separation is
partial and complex: they relate to boys outside the school (e.g. in the
religious youth movement, in their home environment)”.
Music is of particular concern: “Whilst in
childhood, music is not regarded as a threat to a girl's chastity, in
adolescence the sexual and gentile connotations of popular music render it a
major threat to her modesty and honour”. Swimming: “the beach--where Israelis
and tourists, especially young women and men, rub shoulders during the
summer--becomes threatening in adolescence, even if before puberty it was
considered harmless”.
Hauptman (1998)[139]
(as reviewed by Dawn Robinson Rose)[140]:
“To begin,
according to the Torah, seduction and rape of an unwed girl were crimes
against her father, for he would not only lose the anticipated bride-price
for his daughter’s virginity but also have the onus of having to marry off
“damaged goods.” Torah law is concerned with giving him justice. In Exodus
22:15–16 and Deuteronomy 22:28–29, we find the laws that stipulate money (a
payment for damages) given to the father and the daughter married by both the
seducer (Exodus) and the rapist (Deuteronomy).
The view in the Mishnah
is markedly changed. A fixed sum for damages is still paid to the father, but
in addition the seducer pays variable amounts for shame and blemish; the
rapist pays for shame, blemish, and pain. These added categories relate to
and are in compensation for whatever it is that is felt by and happens to the
girl herself. The difference between this and the bare Biblical law cannot be
overstated. The legal focus has been moved to the girl. Out of the five
categories of compensatory damages generally prescribed in mishnaic law
(damage or blemish, medical expenses, lost wages, shame, and pain) two have
been awarded the seduced girl and three the raped.
In Babylonian
Talmud Ketubot 39 a–b, the rabbis attempt to understand pain from a legal
standpoint, pain being part of what distinguishes seduction from rape,
according to Mishnah Ketubot 3:4. What is the pain a girl, a virgin,
experiences during rape? Their ignorance is painful. “It was pain because she
was pushed down!” “But what if she was pushed down on silk pillows (i.e., she
would not feel pain).” […]
Further:
- Robert Etzkin. How Parenting Style And Religiosity Affect The Timing Of Jewish
Adolescents’ Sexual Debut. A Thesis Presented To The Graduate School
Of The University Of Florida In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements
For The Degree Of Master Of Science University Of Florida 2004 http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0004980
- Carr, S. A. (2003) “L.I.E., The Believer, and
the Sexuality of Jewish Boys”, in Snips, Snails, and Puppydog Tails:
Cinemas of Boyhood. Frances Gateward and Murray Pomerance, eds. Contemporary
Film and Television Series. Detroit MI: Wayne
State U P, in press (2003).
A casus about Mezizah:
According to Talmudic laws,
"[...] the man who circumcises the infant,
the mohel, must suck the
infant's bleeding penis with his mouth" using
wine as an antiseptic,
something called Mezizah/Metsitsah/Metzitzah.
There has been considerable
medical debate (see refs.). I'm interested
here in the production of
moral discourse, however. I found only one
unelaborated historical clue:
Medicine and The German Jews
John M. Ephron.
extract of Chapter 6, http://www.cirp.org/library/history/ephron1
"Critics of ritual
circumcision were particularly hostile to the act of
metsisah, sucking the wound.
For many Jews, primarily those who had
joined the German middle
class and had come to share the culture and
aesthetic sensibilities of
that group, metsitsah appeared to be an
atavistic, sexually deviant
act.[n143] "
[n143] For the most
comprehensive treatment of see Jacob Katz, "The
Controversy over the Mezizah:
The Unrestricted Execution of the Rite of
Circumcision," in his
Divine Law in Human Hands, 337-402.
Also:
Benjamin Gesundheit et al.
Neonatal Genital Herpes
Simplex Virus Type 1 Infection After Jewish
Ritual Circumcision: Modern
Medicine and Religious Tradition
Pediatrics, Aug 2004; 114:
e259 - 263.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/114/2/e259.pdf
An
exponent of the hymen cult is hymen reconstruction (hymenorrhaphy, hymenoplasty)[141] said to occur in Morcocco[142], Egypt[143], Jordan[144], and also China. Hymen repair is illegal in
most Arab countries but is said to have been performed unofficially
throughout the Islamic world, with specialists doing five or six a week. The
matter presents ethical issues in non-Islamic countries[145]. Of course, Islamic doctors are
well aware of the fact that the coital truth of anatomical non-intactness is
not a complete one. At the Medical Jurisprudence Third Symposium on “The Islamic Vision of Some Medical
Practices” held from 18-21 April, 1987 A.D., Sheikh M. Al-Ghazali argued: “I
swear to God, girls have come to me, they only played with themselves, and I
believe them because their tears were faster than their words […][146]”. El Saadawi (1980:p15-8)[147] relates that girls are refrained
from masturbation by fear for their hymen; on the other hand, they would be
frequently touched by their brothers.
The User of this Atlas will note that the author
has not specifically focussed on medical issues per se, although some of contemporary material surfaced in the
context of HIV/AIDS discussions. For USAID HIV/AIDS profiles outline country-
and region-specific information on epidemiology, factors contributing to the
disease's spread, challenges faced in mitigating the epidemic, national- and
regional-level responses to date, and a summary of USAID-funded HIV/AIDS
activities, go http://www.synergyaids.com/summaries.asp,
“Asia/Near East” section. Also consider http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr06-00-00.
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Additional refs.:
·
El-Kak, Faysal (2005) Adolescent Sexuality in the Arab Region: Where the Pendulum Swings?
IASSCS (International Association For The Study Of Sexuality, Culture
And Society) 2005 Conference on Sexual Rights and Moral Panics. 21-25 June,
San Francisco
·
Khattab, Hind A. S. (2005) Sexuality Education—A View from the Middle
East. IASSCS (International Association For The Study Of
Sexuality, Culture And Society) 2005 Conference on Sexual Rights and Moral
Panics. 21-25 June, San Francisco
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|
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Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I.
World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed.
2004. Berlin:
Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: Sep 2005
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